Before you purchase savings plans, determine your required savings plans based on your actual resource usage. You can purchase savings plans based on the recommendations of Alibaba Cloud. You can also calculate potential savings plan purchases and then make a purchase on the savings plan buy page. When you calculate potential savings plan purchases, you must consider the discounts provided by each savings plan based on various conditions, such as your budget, billing method of resources, and resource usage duration. Then, select a savings plan type, resource configuration, hourly commitment amount, payment option, and savings plan duration based on the calculation results. This topic describes how to calculate and evaluate potential savings plan purchases and purchase a savings plan that meets your resource usage requirements.
Workflow for purchasing a savings plan
Before you purchase a savings plan, you must calculate and evaluate potential savings plan purchases. Alibaba Cloud provides savings plan recommendations based on your resource usage. Alibaba Cloud also provides the methods and examples on how to calculate and evaluate potential savings plan purchases. You can calculate and evaluate potential savings plan purchases and go to the savings plan buy page to place an order based on the calculation and evaluation results.
You can upgrade existing savings plans. For more information, see Upgrade a savings plan.
On the savings plan buy or upgrade page, the total payable amount for the savings plan is determined based on the hourly commitment amount (Committed Amount) and the duration (Duration) parameters, and the resource usage that the savings plan can cover per hour is determined based on the other parameters. We recommend that you purchase a savings plan based on the recommendations of Alibaba Cloud or the results of manual purchase calculation and evaluation. If you have other discounts, the discounts may apply. the payable amount displayed on the savings plan buy or upgrade page shall prevail.
Purchase a savings plan based on Alibaba Cloud savings plan recommendations
Obtain savings plan recommendations based on your historical resource usage
If you purchased pay-as-you-go Elastic Compute Service (ECS) or Elastic Container Instance resources and want to reduce resource costs, you can view the savings plan recommendations on the Recommended page in the Expenses and Costs console.
On the Recommended page, configure the Savings Plan Type, Duration, and Payment Method parameters and click View. Alibaba Cloud recommends savings plans and hourly commitment amounts based on your specified conditions and calculates the expected savings.
If a recommended savings plan meets your business requirements, click Buy Now to purchase the savings plan.
Customize savings plan recommendations based on your resource requirements
If you have never purchased pay-as-you-go ECS or Elastic Container Instance resources, you can configure instance settings on the Savings Plan Calculator page and follow the on-screen instructions to customize savings plan recommendations.
On the Savings Plan Calculator page, configure instance settings and click Add to List.
In the upper-right corner of the Savings Plan Calculator page, click Savings Plan Calculator to view the savings plan recommendations.
If a recommended savings plan meets your business requirements, click Buy to purchase the savings plan.
Calculate and purchase a savings plan
If the Alibaba Cloud savings plan recommendations do not meet your business requirements or cannot be generated due to insufficient historical usage data, you can calculate an hourly commitment amount based on your resource usage and purchase a savings plan on the savings plan buy page based on the calculation result. The following figure shows the workflow for calculating and purchasing a savings plan.
View the discounts provided by different types of savings plans on the Discount Details page in the Expenses and Costs console, specify a savings plan type, a duration, and a payment option (Payment Method) to customize a savings plan scheme, and then take note of the discount provided by the savings plan scheme.
Calculate the hourly commitment amount based on the discount, your purchase information, and the list prices of eligible resources.
After you calculate and evaluate the savings plan scheme, go to the savings plan buy page and configure the parameters based on the calculation and evaluation results.
Specify an effective time for the savings plan and place an order to purchase the savings plan. The purchased savings plan takes effect at the specified time and is automatically applied to offset the fees for eligible pay-as-you-go resources.
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View discounts
Multiple factors affect the discounts provided by savings plans. You can view the discounts provided by various savings plans on the Discount Details page in the Expenses and Costs console.
The discount provided by a savings plan varies based on the following factors:
The duration of the savings plan. The longer the duration of a savings plan, the higher the discount. Three-year savings plans provide greater discounts than one-year savings plans.
The payment option of the savings plan. Savings plans of higher upfront payment options provide higher discounts. All Upfront savings plans provide the highest discounts, followed by Partial Upfront and No Upfront savings plans.
The instance family of pay-as-you-go instances to which the savings plan applies.
The region of pay-as-you-go instances to which the savings plan applies.
The operating system of pay-as-you-go instances to which the savings plan applies.
When you calculate and evaluate potential savings plan purchases, take note of the following item: Given the same hourly commitment amount, savings plans that provide higher discounts can be used to offset the fees for more pay-as-you-go ECS or Elastic Container Instance resources per hour.
Select a savings plan type
You can purchase general-purchase or ECS compute savings plans to offset the fees for pay-as-you-go ECS or Elastic Container Instance resources. Select a savings plan type based on your business requirements. The following table describes the savings plan types.
If your business depends on ECS instances deployed across different regions or that belong to multiple ECS instance families, we recommend that you purchase general-purpose savings plans.
If your business has stable resource usage for an extended period of time and you want to obtain the highest possible discount, we recommend that you use savings plans to maximize cost savings and meet your business requirements. For example, if your business has stable resource usage with a limited number of predictable load changes, you can purchase a three-year, All Upfront, ECS compute savings plan.
Item | General-purpose savings plan | ECS compute savings plan | ||
Scenario | This type of savings plan is suitable for scenarios in which resource usage is stable, such as during system upgrades and cluster deployment. In these scenarios, instances may be frequently created and released, but the overall usage is stable. | This type of savings plan is suitable for scenarios in which resource usage is stable, such as during system upgrades and cluster deployment. In these scenarios, instances may be frequently created and released, but the overall usage is stable. | ||
Region flexibility | Supported. | Not supported. | ||
Limits on ECS instance families or the creation methods of elastic container instances | Applied to ECS instances regardless of the instance family. | Applied to ECS instances of a specific instance family or a specific instance family set. | ||
Instance type flexibility | Allows changes between instance types. | Allows changes between instance types in an instance family or an instance family set. | ||
Calculate an hourly commitment amount
Each savings plan can be applied to offset discounted hourly fees for pay-as-you-go resources up to the specified hourly commitment that you made to purchase the plan. Within the hourly commitment, the fees for eligible pay-as-you-go resources are discounted and then offset. After you select a type of savings plan that you want to purchase, calculate the hourly commitment amount to maximize the savings plan and cost savings. When you purchase a savings plan, calculate the total commitment amount based on the hourly commitment amount. The following section describes how to calculate an hourly commitment amount. You can calculate the hourly commitment amount of savings plans based on your business requirements.
Select a payment option
Alibaba Cloud provides the following payment options for savings plans: All Upfront, Partial Upfront, and No Upfront. The discount provided by a savings plan varies based on the payment option. Savings plans of higher upfront payment options provide higher discounts and cover higher pay-as-you-go resource spend. Select a payment option based on your business requirements.
All Upfront: Full payment is required at the time of purchase. No other costs or additional hourly fees are charged within the duration of the savings plan.
Partial Upfront: Partial payment (approximately 50% of the full amount) is required at the time of purchase, and the remainder is paid at a discounted hourly rate within the duration of the savings plan.
No Upfront: No upfront payment is required at the time of purchase. You are charged at a discounted hourly rate for every hour within the duration of the savings plan. Your ECS usage determines whether you can use the No Upfront payment option. To check whether you can use the No Upfront payment option, submit a ticket.
Select a duration
When you purchase a general-purpose or ECS compute savings plan, set the duration of the savings plan to 1 Year or 3 Years.
You can calculate the total cost of the savings plan based on the hourly commitment amount and duration. Calculate the total cost of a savings plan based on an hourly commitment amount by using the following formula: Total amount = Hourly commitment amount × 24 hours × 365 days × Duration in years
Specify an effective time and place and pay for the order
If you use a Resource Access Management (RAM) user, the RAM user must have the permissions to purchase savings plans. For more information, see Grant a RAM user the permissions to purchase savings plans.
After you determine all purchase options for a savings plan, go to the savings plan buy page to purchase the savings plan. Configure the parameters based on your selected purchase options and place an order for a savings plan. Set the Activation Type parameter to Immediately Activate or Activated at Specified Point in Time.
Immediately Activate: The savings plan takes effect on the hour (zero minutes and zero seconds past the hour) when you complete the payment.
Activated at Specified Point in Time: Specify a point in time at which the savings plan takes effect. The specified point in time is an on-the-hour time and can be up to one year after the point in time when you place the order.